Chapter 4 Multifaceted Ecology Between Organicism, Emergentism and Reductionism Donato Bergandi1 the Classical Holism-Reductioni
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Against Organicism: a Defence of an Ontology of Everyday Objects
Against Organicism: a defence of an ontology of everyday objects Sean Lastone Michael Jennings University College London PhD 2009 1 Declaration I, Sean Lastone Michael Jennings, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract This thesis claims that attempts to eliminate everyday objects from ontology on the basis of a priori reasoning about the composition relation fail. The thesis focuses on the positions of ‗Organicist‘ philosophers; philosophers who argue that all that exists are organisms and microscopic (or smaller) mereological simples. Organicist positions have two key foundations: 1) arguments from compositional failure, which conclude that there are no everyday objects because (it is argued) there are no non-living composite entities. 2) A rhetorical move, the ‗O-arranging manoeuvre‘, whereby it is claimed that the elimination of everyday objects from our ontology would make ‗no-difference‘ because object-wise arrangements of mereological simples take their place. The thesis maintains that arguments from compositional failure should be reinterpreted as arguments to the conclusion that the notion of ‗composition‘ being employed by Organicists is inadequate for the purposes of metaphysics. A minimal alternative account of everyday objects is posited. It is shown that by deploying the O-arranging manoeuvre Organicists (and other Eliminativists) commit themselves to all that is required on the presented account to entail the conclusion that everyday objects exist. The thesis concludes that there are everyday objects. It suggests that we should reject the idea that composition is what matters in ontology, but if one does not then the thesis gives reasons for rejecting compositional ontologies that entail the non-existence of everyday objects. -
Approaches to Organic Form Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science
APPROACHES TO ORGANIC FORM BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Editor ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University Editorial Advisory Board ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKY, Baruch College of the City University of New York VOLUME 105 APPROACHES TO ORGANIC FORM Permutations in Science and Culture Edited by FREDERICK BURWICK University of California, Los Angeles D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY A MEMBER OF THE KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LANCASTER/TOKYO Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Poblication Data Approaches to organic form. Boston studies in the philosophy of science v. 105) Includes index. 1. Organism (Philosophy) 2. Aesthetics. I. Burwick, Frederick. II. Series. 0174.B67 vol. 105 001'.01 s (146) 87-23482 [B105.074) ISBN-13: 978-94-010-8237-2 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-3917-2 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-3917-2 Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland. All Rights Reserved © 1987 by D. Reidel Publishing Company Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1987 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial Preface VB FREDERICK BURWICK / Introduction ix Acknowledgments xix RICHARD OLSON / On the Nature of God's Existence, Wisdom and Power: The Interplay between Organic and Mechanistic Imagery in Anglican Natural Theology- 1640-1740 1 NINA GELBART / Organicism and the Future of Scientific Utopia 49 WALTER D. -
Philosophy of Ecological Crisis and Two Forms of Modern Dialectics
Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana ISSN: 1315-5216 ISSN: 2477-9555 [email protected] Universidad del Zulia Venezuela Philosophy of Ecological Crisis and two Forms of Modern Dialectics VALIULLINA, Zaynab R.; LUKJANOV, Arkadiy V.; PUSKAREWA, Marina A. Philosophy of Ecological Crisis and two Forms of Modern Dialectics Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana, vol. 23, no. 82, 2018 Universidad del Zulia, Venezuela Available in: https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=27957591037 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1513030 This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International. PDF generated from XML JATS4R by Redalyc Project academic non-profit, developed under the open access initiative Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana, 2018, vol. 23, no. 82, July-September, ISSN: 1315-5216 2477-9555 Notas y debates de actualidad Philosophy of Ecological Crisis and two Forms of Modern Dialectics La filosofía de la crisis ecológica y dos formas de la dialéctica moderna Zaynab R. VALIULLINA DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1513030 Bashkir State University, Rusia Redalyc: https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa? [email protected] id=27957591037 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7120-4516 Arkadiy V. LUKJANOV Bashkir State University, Rusia Marina A. PUSKAREWA Bashkir State University, Rusia Received: 21 August 2018 Accepted: 16 September 2018 Abstract: e rapid development of science and technology results in a change of human lifestyle. e main purpose of the work is to study the philosophy of ecological crisis and the forms of modern dialectics. e idea of "intersubjectivity" will function as our methodological basis. Continuation of Hegel’s ideas and essays of existentialists are related to dialectical processing of thought and technology. -
The Philosophy of Ecology As a Specific and Direct Method of Ecological and Humanistic Research and Management
Envigogika: Charles University E-journal for Environmental Education ISSN 1802-3061 The Philosophy of Ecology as a Specific and Direct Method of Ecological and Humanistic Research and Management Lubov Vladyková Envigogika 10 (4) – Reviewed Papers/ Recenzované články Published/ Publikováno 4. 12. 2015 DOI: 10.14712/18023061.498 Abstract The philosophy of ecology is an intersectional, multi-discursive foundation, which co- vers a vast area characterised by an extensive research agenda, connecting a number of established scientific disciplines. It is our aim to highlight the interdisciplinary character of the problem under discussion, as well as the fact that different conceptions of the philosophy of ecology would be hard to sustain and difficult to respect if they did not respond to the findings of the latest research, be it in the field of ecology or in the field of philosophy. In order to be able to envisage a future for the Earth that would be sustainable in the long term, we need knowledge and we need to internalise a method for evaluating information that would enable us to discard irrelevant information in times of critical change. Key words philosophy of ecology, ecological science, ecological problem Abstrakt Filozofická reflexia ekológie predstavuje prienikovú polydiskurzívnu bázu – čo značne rozširuje priestor s rozsiahlou výskumnou agendou, prechádzajúcou vedecky etablovanými oblasťami. Naším cieľom je upozorniť na interdisciplinárny charakter skúmanej problematiky, ako aj na skutočnosť, že koncepcie filozofie ekológie by boli ťažko obhájiteľné a rešpektované bez reflexie výsledkov súčasného vedeckého poznania tak v oblasti ekologických vied ako aj filozofie. Aby sme mohli plánovať dlhodobo udržateľnú budúcnosť Zeme, potrebujeme ve- domosti a potrebujeme integrovať spôsob, ktorým sú informácie ohodnotené, a ktorým sú neprínosné informácie odmietané v obdobiach kritickej zmeny. -
The Cosmology of Cognitive Science from Hesiod, Socrates, and Plato to Wittgenstein
Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts - Volume 8, Issue 2, April 2021 – Pages 107-136 The Cosmology of Cognitive Science from Hesiod, Socrates, and Plato to Wittgenstein By Richard McDonough* Cognitive science, the attempt to provide an account of human intelligence and behavior by reference to physical ‚mechanisms‛ in the alleged neural control center of human beings, is one of the dominant philosophical projects of our time. The paper argues that Wittgenstein in para. 608 of Zettel develops an alternative to this almost universally accepted modern paradigm. However, his efforts have been widely misunderstood, in a fashion clarified by Kuhn, because scholars read competing paradigms in the light of their own cognitive science paradigm. In the present case, scholars have assumed that the words in Zettel (para. 608), especially ‚the center‛ and ‚chaos,‛ must have the same meanings that they would naturally be assigned in cognitive science. The result is, inevitably, that Zettel (para. 608) either looks like it anticipates one of the various cognitive science paradigms or it looks absurd. In opposition to this, the paper argues that the language in Zettel (para. 608) is not the language of modern cognitive science, but, rather, is the language of the emergence of order from chaos by virtue of a stabilizing center with which the Western intellectual tradition began in ancient Greek cosmology. When read against this background, it becomes clear that Zettel (para. 608) is an attempt to formulates an alternative to the cognitive science paradigm by retrieving a paradigm found in ancient Greek philosophy and literature. The idea that the brain is not the control center of the human organism is in Plato. -
New Yorkers Had Been Anticipating His Visit for Months. at Columbia
INTRODUCTION ew Yorkers had been anticipating his visit for months. At Columbia University, where French intellectual Henri Bergson (1859–1941) Nwas to give twelve lectures in February 1913, expectations were es- pecially high. When first approached by officials at Columbia, he had asked for a small seminar room where he could directly interact with students and faculty—something that fit both his personality and his speaking style. But Columbia sensed a potential spectacle. They instead put him in the three- hundred-plus-seat lecture theater in Havemeyer Hall. That much attention, Bergson insisted, would make him too nervous to speak in English without notes. Columbia persisted. So, because rhetorical presentation was as impor- tant to him as the words themselves, Bergson delivered his first American lec- ture entirely in French.1 Among the standing-room-only throng of professors and editors were New York journalists and “well-dressed” and “overdressed” women, all fumbling to make sense of Bergson’s “Spiritualité et Liberté” that slushy evening. Between their otherwise dry lines of copy, the reporters’ in- credulity was nearly audible as they recorded how hundreds of New Yorkers strained to hear this “frail, thin, small sized man with sunken cheeks” practi- cally whisper an entire lecture on metaphysics in French.2 That was only a prelude. Bergson’s “Free Will versus Determinism” lec- ture on Tuesday, February 4th—once again delivered in his barely audible French—caused the academic equivalent of a riot. Two thousand people attempted to cram themselves into Havemeyer. Hundreds of hopeful New Yorkers were denied access; long queues of the disappointed snaked around the building and lingered in the slush. -
ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: for the END IS a LIMIT
ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: FOR THE END IS A LIMIT: THE QUESTION CONCERNING THE ENVIRONMENT Ozguc Orhan, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Dissertation Directed By: Professor Charles E. Butterworth Department of Government and Politics Professor Ken Conca Department of Government and Politics This dissertation argues that Aristotle’s philosophy of praxis (i.e., ethics and politics) can contribute to our understanding of the contemporary question concerning the environment. Thinking seriously about the environment today calls for resisting the temptation to jump to conclusions about Aristotle’s irrelevance to the environment on historicist grounds of incommensurability or the fact that Aristotle did not write specifically on environmental issues as we know them. It is true that environmental problems are basically twentieth-century phenomena, but the larger normative discourses in which the terms “environmental” and “ecological” and their cognates are situated should be approached philosophically, namely, as cross-cultural and trans-historical phenomena that touch human experience at a deeper level. The philosophical perspective exploring the discursive meaning behind contemporary environmental praxis can reveal to us that certain aspects of Aristotle’s thought are relevant, or can be adapted, to the ends of environmentalists concerned with developmental problems. I argue that Aristotle’s views are already accepted and adopted in political theory and the praxis of the environment in many respects. In the first half of the dissertation, I -
The Concept of Organism, a Historical and Conceptual Critique
Do organisms have an ontological status? Charles T. Wolfe Unit for History and Philosophy of Science University of Sydney [email protected] forthcoming in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 32:2-3 (2010) Abstract The category of „organism‟ has an ambiguous status: is it scientific or is it philosophical? Or, if one looks at it from within the relatively recent field or sub-field of philosophy of biology, is it a central, or at least legitimate category therein, or should it be dispensed with? In any case, it has long served as a kind of scientific “bolstering” for a philosophical train of argument which seeks to refute the “mechanistic” or “reductionist” trend, which has been perceived as dominant since the 17th century, whether in the case of Stahlian animism, Leibnizian monadology, the neo-vitalism of Hans Driesch, or, lastly, of the “phenomenology of organic life” in the 20th century, with authors such as Kurt Goldstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Georges Canguilhem. In this paper I try to reconstruct some of the main interpretive „stages‟ or „layers‟ of the concept of organism in order to critically evaluate it. How might „organism‟ be a useful concept if one rules out the excesses of „organismic‟ biology and metaphysics? Varieties of instrumentalism and what I call the „projective‟ concept of organism are appealing, but perhaps ultimately unsatisfying. 1. What is an organism? There have been a variety of answers to this question, not just in the sense of different definitions (an organism is a biological individual; it is a living being, or at least the difference between a living organism and a dead organism is somehow significant in a way that does not seem to make sense for other sorts of entities, like lamps and chairs; it is a self-organizing, metabolic system; etc.) but more tendentiously, in the 1 sense that philosophers, scientists, „natural philosophers‟ and others have both asserted and denied the existence of organisms. -
Environmental Philosophy: Beyond Environmental Ethics
Environmental Philosophy: Beyond Environmental Ethics Mark Colyvan* Abstract: There are many interesting philosophical issues associated with the science and policy of conserving our natural environment. Despite much of the philosophical work being passed off as environmental ethics, it is clear that the issues in question go well beyond anything that can reasonably be thought of as belonging to environmental ethics. A great deal of the philosophical work required involves epistemology and decision theory. Moreover, this is no mere terminological issue. Misconstruing the nature of the issues in question, and the tools available to deal with them, can result in sub- optimal environmental outcomes. Once we disentangle the various philosophical issues in question, the proper role of environmental ethics, and environmental philosophy more generally, becomes clearer. The central focus of environmental ethics ought to be that of how to implement ethical environmental strategies in the face of uncertainty—uncertainty both about how the world is and about the relevant values. But the proper representation of the uncertainties in question is the business of epistemology, and the proper framework for making the decisions in question is the business of decision theory. Thinking that either of these latter issues falls within the purview of environmental ethics is a dangerous mistake. Environmental ethics concerns itself with ethical issues arising from the relationship between humans and the natural environment. Of particular interest are ethical considerations in relation to human efforts to conserve the natural environment. Some of the key environmental ethics issues are whether environmental value is intrinsic or instrumental, whether biodiversity is valuable in itself or whether it is an indicator of some other value(s), and what the appropriate time scale is for conservation planning. -
The Science of the Struggle for Existence on the Foundations of Ecology
P1: FpQ CY239/Cooper-FM 0 52180432 9 July 29, 2003 15:6 The Science of the Struggle for Existence On the Foundations of Ecology GREGORY J. COOPER Washington and Lee University v P1: FpQ CY239/Cooper-FM 0 52180432 9 July 29, 2003 15:6 published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon´ 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org c Gregory J. Cooper 2003 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2003 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeface Times Roman 10.25/13 pt. System LATEX 2 [TB] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Cooper, Gregory John. The science of the struggle for existence : on the foundations of ecology / by Gregory Cooper. p. cm – (Cambridge studies in philosophy and biology) Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 0-521-80432-9 1. Ecology – Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series. QH540.5.C66 2003 577–dc21 2002041441 ISBN 0 521 80432 9 hardback vi P1: FpQ CY239/Cooper-FM 0 52180432 -
Holism Organicism Verific
HOLISM, ORGANICISM AND THE RISK OF BIOCHAUVINISM Charles Wolfe To cite this version: Charles Wolfe. HOLISM, ORGANICISM AND THE RISK OF BIOCHAUVINISM. Verifiche. Rivista di scienze umana, 2014. hal-02070000 HAL Id: hal-02070000 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02070000 Submitted on 26 Mar 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. HOLISM, ORGANICISM AND THE RISK OF BIOCHAUVINISM by Charles T. Wolfe Abstract. In this essay I seek to critically evaluate some forms of holism and organicism in biological thought, as a more deflationary echo to Gilbert and Sarkar’s reflection on the need for an ‘umbrella’ concept to convey the new vitality of holistic concepts in biology (Gilbert and Sarkar 2000). Given that some recent discussions in theoretical biology call for an organism concept (from Moreno and Mossio’s work on organization to Kirschner et al.’s research paper in Cell, 2000, building on chemistry to articulate what they called “molecular vitalism,” studying the “vitalistic” properties of molecular, cellular, and organismal function, -
Philosophy of Ecology ENVS 410/510, BI 410/510 MW 2:00 - 3:50, 301A Allen CRN: 36606, Spring 2010
Welcome to Philosophy of Ecology ENVS 410/510, BI 410/510 MW 2:00 - 3:50, 301A Allen CRN: 36606, Spring 2010 Brendan Bohannan Ted Toadvine Office: 309 Pacific Hall Office: 329 PLC Phone: 541-346-4883 Phone: 541-346-5554 Email:[email protected] Email: [email protected] Office Hours: W 4:00 - 5:30 Office Hours: TR 10:30 - 12:00 About the Philosophy of Ecology Many of the greatest challenges facing society today involve our relationship to the natural world. How do we as individuals and a society respond to a changing environment? What can we do to manage our impact on the natural systems that sustain life? How can we continue to develop economically while ensuring that our children inherit a planet that is livable? The science of ecology is one of the fundamental sources of information regarding our relationship to the natural world. Our course will focus on how ecological knowledge is developed. How do we know what we know about nature? Our course will also introduce students more generally to the philosophy of science. The science of ecology poses a number of very interesting and central questions in the philosophy of science. Ecology is a relatively new field of science, and has been called the most “intractable of the biological sciences.” Ecologists struggle with the metaphysical character of the entities they study, with the use and misuse of metaphor and analogy, and with defining clear intellectual boundaries. Ecologists are also faced with the same fundamental issues that all scientists face, such as the how to balance rationalism and empiricism, the conflict between reductionism and holism, the nature of scientific “law”, and the use and abuse of theory.